Friday Sept. 15th, students who were part of the FSU Student Fellows Program had an opportunity to present the research that these students have gathered over the summer.
The entire event started with a welcome speech which then moved on to the Founders Room where each student was given an opportunity to present the findings of their research.
Each student was given a seven-minute time limit to present their findings which would be followed by a quick Q&A but before the students would come up to the podium, each student was introduced by the professor who was responsible for the oversight of the research product. When introducing their mentees, each professor would talk with pride about the time and effort that each student put into the research product. Overall, the general atmosphere of the event was a mixture of pride and joy between a mentoring professor and the mentee student.
“I just got to say that I had a super time working with Dr. Owens,” said Danique Walker a recent graduate of Ferris’s nursing program, who spent the summer researching about the healthcare field and carbon emissions. “Dr. Owens was with me every step of the way. Whenever I need an extra pair of eyes or if I needed to meet with her outside of normal office hours, Dr. Owens would be very accommodating.”
Walker had nothing but positive things to say about Dr. Owens and the mentor-like relationship that these two cultivated this summer. “Dr Owens has guided me with her own knowledge and past experiences.” Walker said “I don’t think that this experience could have gone as smoothly as it had without her input”
This is a sentiment that many of the other student researchers shared with the faculty members who helped mentor these students during this summer fellowship.
“I worked with Dr. Janet Vizina-Roubal for this project, and we had a very good working relationship” Bryce Longenberger a recent graduate of the master of social work presented his researcher on the connection between post-traumatic stress disorder and dementia in older adults. “Dr. Vizina-Roual gave me some very good advice and guidance on how to steer the direction of my research project, she mostly gave me the liberty to do what I wanted which was nice because it allowed me to steer the project in my own direction.”
The positive reaction that a lot of these student researchers had towards the mentors who guided them this summer was met with equal praise from the mentors to their mentees.
“Danique took my suggestions and ran with them” Dr. Susan Owens said. “A mentorship is easier when people understand how you are thinking, I knew when to push and when not to push and right at the go we made a calendar and we kept those end dates in mind which allowed us to stay on schedule.”
When Dr Owens was asked how she think Walker presented, Owens said she thought Walker did very well.
“We practiced it a lot, Danique slowed her presentation down which was a good accomplishment compared to how fast it was going earlier and if there were things that we had to cut out but I think that she handled it perfectly.”
Owens was not the only faculty member to show their pride and excitement about the students presenting their research.
“I thought the students did an amazing job, far beyond what I expected to see” said Dr Greg Gogolin the keynote speaker for this event and director of center for cyber security and data science “There were some very solid results even though some results, I was impressed all the projects were very well done and professionally presented.”
When asked if Gogolin thought that the student researchers had any room for improvement, he could not think of any critiques he could make.
After presenting their findings in the Founders Room the event was moved to the ballroom in the David L. Eisler center where lunch was presented, and the student researchers had the opportunity to present and answer any questions to the students who had missed the more formal presentation stage of the event. While the students would stand by their diagrams a lot of the Ferris faculty who had mentored these students would not be found far away from their mentees with nothing but absolute looks of pride at all that their students had accomplished not only with the research that these students did this summer, but also pride at how well their students had presented their findings at the 2023 Celebration of Student Research and Creative Activities.